In the aircraft industry one commonly used fastener is the stump type two-piece non-threaded pin/collar lockbolt fastener system. This system includes a pin which is force fit by compressive forces through two aligned apertures in side-by-side workpieces, and a collar which is then swaged about the lower end of the pin, which pin is provided with a series of annular grooves. While there are many advantages to this form of fastener it has been found that stresses will be developed when forcing the pin into the aligned aperture, and also that the pin on occasion may not be fully seated. These disadvantages may be overcome by impacting the fastener with a hammer or the like to relieve stresses and to insure that it is fully seated before the collar swaged about the lower end of the pin.
While the above process can be done when using hand tooling, it has not been practical with automated tooling. As manufacturing organizations have been facing the ever increasing twin pressures of improving productivity and enhancing quality, automation in various forms is being utilized to overcome the problems of spiraling assembly costs and marketplace demands for improved consistency of product quality. Thus, riveting machines have been developed which can move along large workpieces, such as for example the wing of a commercial jet aircraft, while drilling the workpieces and while installing rivets. These machines may be modified to insert pin collar fasteners as well as other fasteners such as nuts and bolts where precise positioning, drilling, and compressive forces during installation may be required. Thus, automatic collar feeding devices have been designed to be added to a drill/riveting machine in the same manner as any lower tooling, the function of the collar feeding device being to store and automatically feed into position a collar which is then, in proper sequence, swaged on to a lock bolt stump pin already inserted into the workpiece from the overhead mechanism of the drill/riveting machine. By utilizing this form of machinery substantially consistent fastener insertion and securement can be accomplished. However, with this apparatus it has not been possible to vibrate or impact the fastener after insertion to either relieve stresses or to insure that the fastener is fully inserted.